By Paul T. Shipale
AN article by Mathias Haufiku in the New Era edition of January 7, with the headline ‘Election fever to hit SADC in 2014’, reminded us that five of the 15 SADC-member states are preparing to hold national elections this year.
Indeed, millions in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Botswana will go to the polls this year, while our country Namibia will celebrate its 24th independence anniversary in the year in which all eligible Namibian voters will go to the polls in November for the sixth national elections. This is also the year in which the country’s President Hifikepunye Pohamba, will complete his second and final term in office. Vidal Romero, Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Centre for Latin American Studies (2012-2013), in his work: ‘Understanding the Determinants of Presidential Legacies’, says all things being equal, presidents should prefer to be positively remembered in history for improving their country’s conditions and leaving their mark in their nations and President Pohamba is no exception. According to Vidal, presidential legacies are not fixed in time. We are dealing with a dynamic process, and in which multiple biases are present. From the complete set of actions that presidents perform while in office, only a small subset of actions is selected at every step; and from the selected ones, some have greater weights than others. As a result, at every point in time after the presidential term, the actions for which a president is remembered are necessarily a selective and likely biased excerpt of the complete set of performed actions. Famous incidents – positive or negative – tend to overshadow other actions that occurred during a presidential administration (Nelson, 2000; Pious, 2008; Rose, 1993). Anthony Pizzonia Shaskus in his thesis presented for graduation with research distinction in Political Science at Ohio State University in May 2008, was interested in answering a simple question: What makes a president successful? To answer this question, Shaskus selected four scholars who were constantly cited in articles and books about the presidency: James David Barber, Richard Neustadt, Clinton Rossiter, and Aaron Wildavsky. Whereas Barber believes a president’s character traits serve as the most accurate predictor of success in his notable book, ‘The Presidential Character’, Neustadt argues that a president’s ability to influence his constituents is the primary contributor to a successful administration.
Although Barber and Neustadt differ in their understanding of the derivations of presidential power, they share the view that success and effective rule are primarily correlated to the individual in office, rather than the situations the individual encounters. Rossiter, offers another explanation of presidential power, by recognising the constitutional responsibilities of the president, yet also identifies additional responsibilities that have surfaced during the modern era, which include roles such as: Chief of Party, Voice of the People, Protector of Peace, Manager of Prosperity, etc. Thus, according to Rossiter, the president’s success is a product of both his performance of constitutionally mandated duties, and his performance in the acquired roles.
The introduction of situational factors into the discussion of presidential power and success is an important development. Throughout a president’s time in office there are a myriad of situations that occur and affect success. Therefore, Shaskus believes that a hybrid approach may offer a more insightful understanding of presidential success.
By approaching the presidents of the modern era with a model of success that incorporates both traits and situations, Shaskus has developed a list of characteristics that allow a president to operate successfully. These are: adaptive leadership, communication, and citizen compassion. The concept of adaptive leadership refers to the president’s ability to adjust his direction or agenda depending on the current political or social climate. Much like adaptive leadership, successful presidents also share a certain level of citizen compassion, which can be defined as an individual’s ability to relate to persons of another class, race, or group.
In other words, citizen compassion deals with the president’s ability to receive or take in information, while the communication characteristic demonstrates the president’s ability to express himself and disseminate information. According to Shaskus, these independent variables all contribute to the dependent variable of successful presidency.
Using the above-mentioned variables, we can empirically assess President Pohamba’s legacy. As far as the adaptive leadership is concerned, one can say Pohamba had a very good leadership style and not necessarily a laissez faire one as some indicated. Pohamba was able to adjust depending on the current political or social climate. It is against this background that we saw a new Ministry of Veterans Affairs created and a number of tombstones and statues erected and unveiled in honour of our heroes and heroines while some regions were renamed under his watch.
These achievements also point to the president’s ability to receive or take in information and demonstrating citizen compassion to obtain an accurate reading of public sentiment.
This is what we witnessed when his intervention saved the SPYL leadership from being expelled from the party and when he appointed to the Politburo the veteran politician Helmut Angula and the capable Minister of Finance, Sara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila.
Tjiurimo Alfredo Hengari wrote a piece that appeared on Friday, February 22, 2013 in the Windhoek Observer titled “President Pohamba’s 2012 victory should not be tentative”. In that piece Hengari advised the President on how he should start thinking of the legacy he will leave behind. Hengari asserted, “President Pohamba deserves credit for having been able to oversee a political and electoral process at the Swapo Party congress in November/December 2012 without any devastating consequences.” Hengari then suggested to the President to capitalize on his new political victory by approaching the last two years of his presidency in a confident and urgent manner by crafting a legacy narrative for himself. He reasoned that since Pohamba’s leadership has been largely transitional, managing old and new political expectations, now in the twilight of his presidency, he should think of crafting a sustainable legacy around the key challenges facing the country, as well as innovative and sustainable infrastructural priorities that would be engraved in the collective memory of Namibians as bearing the hallmarks of his presidency.
The Namibian Sun of January 2, 2014, reported that in his New Year’s message, Pohamba said his administration recorded groundbreaking successes in the delivery of public services and social amenities in 2013. These include the building of roads and bridges and the establishment of fresh-produce hubs.
“New public infrastructure projects such as the National Mass Housing Programme… [were] also launched,” said the Head of State.
“The deepening of the Walvis Bay Harbour, the construction of the Neckartal Dam and the construction of the Kudu Gas Power Project were also launched.”
President Pohamba then turned his attention to the private sector were he said the Husab Uranium Mine and the development of the B2 Gold Project are some of the successes in that sector.
“These projects will boost economic activities in the country during the New Year and beyond,” concluded the President.
Another opinion piece that appeared in The Namibian of August 23, 2013 titled: Pohamba has a good legacy after all, said “his [Pohamba] public gestures point to a man determined to fix the massive cracks and senseless political divisions, including those he wilfully caused, and differentiate between political opposition and enmity.”
The author of the opinion piece said this after Pohamba’s move of public display of friendship and, dare we say, camaraderie, with Hidipo Hamutenya, the leader of the Rally for Democracy and Progress when he invited Hamutenya to be at the head of the main table for his 30th wedding anniversary together with Founding President and Father of the Nation, Dr Sam Nujoma. Furthermore, since becoming President in 2005, Pohamba held regular State House ‘consultations’ with national leaders giving the cue as to what Namibian political conduct should be like going fiorward. According to the author of the opinion piece, the symbolism of ‘wining and dining’ in private and away from political events, has a great impact on the nation and can defuse physical conflicts in future.
However, while Nujoma wrote his memoirs, not much is written about Pohamba except a citation by Prof.
Lazarus Hangula, UNAM’s Vice Chancellor, conferring on him an Honorary Doctorate Degree on May 13, 2011.
The president was surrounded by many people, but not a single Presidential historian to dedicate his or her time to researching and writing about the president. Surely, Nujoma’s record is difficult to match given that he laid the foundations of our nation and State, nevertheless, Pohamba would be remembered for his adaptive leadership and citizen compassion, since he was able to maintain the peace and stability prevailing in the country and to build on the foundation laid by the founding president.
*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of my employer and this newspaper but solely reflect my personal views as a citizen.